


Devil at the Door

by Brumeier



Series: Killer Instinct [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Attraction, Dark Character, M/M, Male Slash, Prompt Fill, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 19:14:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14002782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Poem Lines & Titles prompt:Any, any, Raw With Love by Charles BukowskiIn which Rodney gets taken off the Grandpa Killer case and has to find other ways to re-connect with John.





	Devil at the Door

It was an act of desperation.

Rodney hit send and almost immediately had to run to the bathroom, vomiting so much he seriously considered going to the ER. He sat next to the toilet long after his stomach had finally settled, damp washcloth wrapped around his neck. He felt like he was being torn in two, half of him hoping his message was received and the other half hoping it languished in the dark web forever, unread.

He'd sent an encrypted message via a dummy account so buried in coding and routed through so many international servers it could never be traced back to him. The message contained coordinates that led to an address, and all the information he'd been able to dig up on a man that fit a certain set of criteria: white male between the ages of forty and sixty, successful businessman. A man with a dark secret his loving wife and children would never suspect.

Rodney resented John for making that necessary.

Deputy Director Rossman had taken Rodney off the Grandpa Killer case, citing stagnation of the investigation and concern that Rodney was getting too obsessed with the case to the detriment of the other, more pressing, cases he was supposed to be working on.

Two months after Rodney was taken off the case, all activity from the killer stopped. There were no more bodies, no more coded notes. Six months after that he was so desperate to reconnect with John he sent the man a hand-picked victim. Assuming Rodney had sent the information to the right person.

Just because he’d been reassigned didn’t meant Rodney had stopped doing his job. He was pretty sure he’d found John, his real identity. His name. The only pictures that existed online were from twenty-five years ago, though, and Rodney couldn’t be one hundred percent certain. 

John Sheppard: smart, meticulous, incredibly lethal. And hopefully the owner of an email account (thelordismy) that only existed on the dark web.

When Rodney felt he could get back on his feet without falling down, he brushed his teeth and went to bed. All he could do now was wait.

*o*o*o*

“The Grandpa Killer is back,” Deputy Director Rossman said to the assembled agents in the bullpen three weeks later. “It may be that the break in his routine is the result of incarceration or hospitalization. I want agents checking anyone recently released from prison that fits the time frame, and anyone who may have been admitted for a lengthy stay in a hospital or care facility.”

“Where?” Rodney asked, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. His hands were fisted in his lap. “Where did he strike this time?”

“Provo.”

Provo. Oh, god. He’d done it. He’d killed a man as surely as if he’d had his hand on the knife. Rodney struggled to keep his expression passive, his voice steady.

“I want back on the team.”

“The resident agency is handling the investigation, with full support from the Salt Lake City office,” Rossman said dismissively.

“All do respect, sir, but no-one knows more about this case and this unsub than I do. I should be on the scene. I know what to look for.”

“Request denied.” Rossman’s tone made it clear there’d be no room for negotiating. 

Rodney didn’t hear much of the rest of the meeting. He was too busy fuming over the injustice of his situation. He was supposed to go to Provo. John might’ve left him a personal note or some other small sign hidden at the crime scene.

He might’ve contacted Rodney directly, like he did in Maine.

“Don’t worry, McKay,” Agent Dominguez said encouragingly. “We’ll catch him.”

“Dominguez, you couldn’t catch a cold,” Rodney snapped. He got back to work on the boring corporate fraud case he’d been assigned. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking.

*o*o*o*

Two nights later Rodney trudged through his front door and let his messenger bag slide to the floor. He’d closed not one but two fraud cases, but he didn’t feel like celebrating. He missed the rush that came from working Violent Crime. Missed the satisfaction of bringing down an actual criminal and not just some rich asshole trying to get richer. The FBI was wasting his genius on white collar cases.

Rodney dropped down on his couch and started shuffling through the mail, grumbling to himself all the while. He couldn’t even get proper updates on the Grandpa Killer case because Rossman had shut him out – _“For your own mental health, Agent McKay.”_ – and no-one associated with the case would talk to him.

Most of Rodney’s mail was junk; he paid all his bills online. There were some random catalogs, a notice about upcoming local elections, a flyer for an art show, and a small, plain manila envelope that had no writing or postage on it. Rodney tossed the rest of the mail aside.

The envelope was taped shut instead of sealed and there was no indication of where it had come from or who it was for, apart from the fact that it had been in Rodney’s locked mailbox. He held it up to the light, could make out something about the size of a credit card. There didn’t seem to be anything else inside, so he carefully opened it.

A hotel key card slipped out and dropped into his hand.

Rodney’s skin flushed hot. It was a local hotel. And there was only one person who could’ve slipped it in with his mail. He grabbed his keys and headed for the door.

*o*o*o*

The Hay-Adams was a luxury hotel, the kind Rodney normally wouldn’t be able to afford, full of local history dating back to the 1800s. He felt like he’d be made as a fed the second he walked through the doors, but he managed to slip in unnoticed thanks to a very loud foreign family arguing with the concierge.

A room number had been written on the back of the key card so Rodney knew where to go once he made it to the elevator. He hesitated a minute when he reached the right room. Should he knock? Just use the card and go inside? What if he had the whole thing wrong?

Rodney took a deep breath and used the key card. He stepped into a high-end suite, lights on but dimmed. There was a large living room area, a dining area with a table big enough to seat ten, and a balcony with a view of the White House and the Washington Monument, both lit up and clearly visible in the dark.

“Hello?” he called out. 

When there was no answer Rodney tried the other doors. One led to a bathroom decked out in creamy marble with a jacuzzi tub and a toilet that had digital controls. The second door led to the bedroom, which had another balcony, a fifty-inch flat screen TV mounted on the wall, and John lounging on the king-sized bed in a plush white robe.

“You didn’t come to Provo,” John said. There was a bowl of strawberries on the nightstand and he plucked one out, taking a delicate bite. 

“The Deputy Director took me off the case,” Rodney said. “Why did you stop killing?”

“They didn’t have anyone as smart as you chasing me.”

John shifted slightly on the bed, enough for the robe to fall open a bit more and show he was naked underneath. All of the blood in Rodney’s brain drained straight down to his cock. He’d never wanted anyone as badly as he wanted the psychopath in front of him, and that should have been a huge red flag, a warning that sent him running out of the room.

Instead he took his jacket off.

“You found me. I knew you would.” A little strawberry juice ran down John’s chin, unchecked. “Why did you send me to Utah?”

 _I wanted to see you again_. Rodney knew he couldn’t say that. There was no good reason for what he’d done, he was well aware of that. The sex had been good, but that wasn’t enough to further entangle himself with a notorious serial killer.

“You got under my skin,” Rodney said. That, at least, was the truth.

“Are you here to take me in?”

“Do you want me to?” Rodney countered, but his fingers were already at the buttons of his shirt, undoing them in quick succession.

“Not until I get under your skin a little more.” John raised an eyebrow and held another plump strawberry to his lips. 

Rodney shrugged out of his shirt and unbuckled his pants, already painfully hard. He was absolutely certain he was about to make a mistake. A huge mistake. But nothing could’ve stopped him, not even his own dubious conscious.

John watched him, his arousal just as apparent even though he made no move towards Rodney. He merely waited until Rodney was naked and crawling up the foot of the bed, cock bobbing, and then a slow, seductive smile spread across his face. He bit the strawberry in half, letting more juice run down his chin, and along his neck.

Rodney straddled him and moved in for a kiss, hard and desperate. He tasted strawberries and scotch and let out an embarrassingly needy noise as he kissed and licked down John’s chin, following the trail of juice. He unbelted John’s robe, exposing him as he licked and bit down John’s chest.

John was lean but muscled, able to subdue men twice his size. Rodney had never figured out how he did it. There was never any evidence of sedatives or burns from a taser, and Rodney was worse off than he thought if that was a turn-on.

They didn’t talk at all. There was nothing between them but grunts and groans and the slide of skin and the slapping of flesh against flesh. Rodney came quickly, like a teenager during his first time, but somehow John was able to draw another orgasm out of him much later, riding Rodney with an intensity of purpose that was oddly electrifying.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Rodney said after, when both of them were lying sated and spent on the bed. “This isn’t healthy. You’re a psychopath.”

“You can’t label me that easily, Special Agent,” John replied with a lazy drawl. “I can’t be pigeon-holed. Neither can the feelings you have for me.”

“Feelings? Who said anything about feelings?” A little flutter of panic beat at Rodney’s breastbone, and he fully appreciated the irony of the timing. He felt raw physically and emotionally and had the self-awareness to know he was headed down a dark road.

“Relax,” John said. He leaned over Rodney, hand sliding over Rodney’s hip, and took a strawberry from the bowl. He rubbed the end of it across Rodney’s lips. “Eat.”

“Are you going to drug me again?” Rodney asked. 

“Do I need to?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t.”

But he did anyway, and in the morning Rodney woke up to a clean room and a clean body and a note on the pillow: _I’ll be waiting_.

*o*o*o*

Sending the second name was much easier than the first. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** So, this prompt. I read the whole poem, which is pretty dark stuff, and wondered what I could write that was comparable. And I thought of killer!John and how his relationship with Rodney could turn into something super unhealthy. And so here we are.


End file.
